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For the sixth time in ten years, the people of the Tribal Areas are on receiving end of the unleashed fury of one of the largest militaries in the world. Just like the current operation, the preceding five operations against Taliban and assorted militants in the area had also been termed similarly “decisive” but only resulted in greater immiseration and suffering for the people of FATA and PATA, while militant leaders escaped and dispersed over an ever wider area. Meanwhile, the people of FATA have suffered for the last hundred years under policies legitimizing violent pacification and collective punishment. For the last three decades, the region has been used as training ground for the ‘jihad’ franchise run by the Pakistani security establishment in collusion with the US and Saudi Arabia. The general peripheralization of FATA and a regime based on regressive, colonial-era codes (such as the Frontier Crimes Regulation FCR) has resulted in ample space created in the region for the entrance and entrenchment of violent, fundamentalist groups such as the TTP. Moreover, the region’s instrumental treatment by the ruling classes as a “strategic backwater” and launching pad for ‘jihad’ since the 1980s, has resulted in a vast and unregulated war economy which makes the area extremely lucrative for militant groups. For the past decade or so, the people of FATA have found themselves caught between an oppressive triumvirate of violence made up by Taliban and foreign militants, the Pakistan military and American drone attacks. Through all this, their disenfranchisement has reached new levels, a trend amply demonstrated in the continuous cycle of military operations and “talks” conducted with militants without even a semblance of substantive input from the actual stakeholders (i.e. the people of FATA themselves).

As Pakistanis committed to a progressive and pro-people politics, we disavow any violence committed on the subordinate classes, including ethnic and religious minorities, by the Pakistani state, US imperialism or militants (such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan). The Pakistani state and especially the military, far from being part of the solution, are an integral part of and contributors to the problem of religious extremism and militancy. For example, in recent years, even at the cost of widespread misery for the peoples of Pakistan, there is ample evidence that the security establishment has continued to nurture at least some of these groups as proxies in areas such as Balochistan. Moreover, it is no secret that the problem of Islamist militancy in Pakistan is not limited to the TTP nor is it geographically limited to FATA or any other region. It has deep sociological roots in several urban centers (and not just within ethnicised ghettoes in these urban centers). Yet we are supposed to accept the fact that a military operation which specifically targets FATA, and only the TTP and some foreign militants, is an operation against the roots of terrorism.

The Pakistani ruling classes’ imbrications with US imperialism, the general underdevelopment bred under conditions of economic dependency (on institutions such as the IMF) and the security establishment’s nefarious use of militant groups, makes any solution to the problem of religious extremism which goes through the ruling classes, and especially the state’s coercive institutions, extremely unlikely. Furthermore, both past precedent and current analysis make it clear that not only is there no military solution to this issue, the current operation will not even have the limited effect of undermining the organizational capacity of groups like the TTP. Newspaper reports have already revealed that most militants crossed the border into neighboring regions and Afghanistan even before the operation started[i]. All that this operation is guaranteed to do is create more misery for the people of FATA and neighboring regions.

It is for the aforementioned reasons that we oppose the ongoing military operation in North Waziristan and the rest of the tribal areas, and demand its immediate and unconditional end. This is to be followed by a short and long-term program which returns power back to the people themselves not just in FATA but all over Pakistan. In this regard, our demands can be found here.

The authors are signatories of a statement demanding an end to Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan. The analysis presented here is their own and may not reflect the views of all signatories to the statement.

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It must be pointed out, however, that any situation where nearly everyone is ready to cheerlead a military assault — especially one resulting in civilian casualties and mass displacement — is exceptionally unreasonable. What those amongst us actively celebrating this operation need to contemplate is that baying for blood and shrugging off the loss of innocent lives as collateral damage is a primal, borderline fascistic response. All it does is floor the already low level of moral and intellectual debate in the country, and endorse the already dehumanised view of Pakhtuns and other communities living in Fata and its adjoining areas. Full article

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“War is politics by other means”. As a result, the success or failure of a military operation is determined, in the final analysis, by its political impact. The United States, for example, did not lose the war against an impoverished Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City; rather the United States lost its imperialist war in the streets of Washington D.C where millions of young working class, progressive and peace-loving American citizens marched against their own imperialist state.

The main point that we need to consider in terms of deciding why we must oppose this operation that is being conducted in FATA today is that its political considerations are rooted in the colonial nature of the Pakistani state: colonial, in the precise sense that FATA is a peripheral region WITHIN a peripheral country (Pakistan). The word “Federally Administered” does not leave a lot to the imagination: it is governed by a colonial law from 1901. The “center” appoints a political agent who is judge, jury and executioner in FATA. The elected representatives of FATA are not sovereign: this is precisely how we define a DICTATORSHIP. To put it in absolutely clear terms, FATA is a colony of Pakistan.

Some people fear that when the TTP takes over (God forbid) they are going to install an ‘archaic’ legal system that will create the worst possible dictatorship we have ever seen. It is unfortunate that these people do not see that the people of FATA are ALREADY GOVERNED by an archaic dictatorial law—the FCR—the law is so barbaric that it allows for collective punishments of entire families. It is so barbaric and archaic that in 2011 a 6 year old girl (Zarmina) was punished for a crime committed by her uncle.

As long as you continue to examine the question from the perspective of the nation-state (Pakistan)—which is controlled by its ruling-classes— rather than the perspective of the PEOPLE of FATA you will make the mistake of assuming that the operation will achieve its political goals.

Support for an undemocratic (undemocratic from the perspective of the local population) operation is bad politics for the simple reason that

1) It ignores the guerrilla nature of the war and the fact that guerrilla armies thrive upon local support. As a result, an undemocratic operation that forces eviction upon millions will only add further fuel to an already precarious situation.

2) It ignores the POLITICAL content of “war” by using politically meaningless terms like “surgical strikes”.

The question is not whether or not “war” is a good or a bad thing in general. I am not one of those people who oppose this operation because I oppose war in general. I am not a pacifist although I am pro-peace. All that I am saying is that the choice of making war (or conducting talks, or doing something else) should be arrived at via the popular consent of the people of FATA. In the absence of this political consent the people of this region (that is still governed by the colonial legal fabric) will be further driven towards the Islamo-fascist opposition that we want to eliminate from our social fabric.

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Meanwhile jets pound North Waziristan, the security apparatus continues to target nationalists in Balochistan, and polarisation in Sindh shows no sign of abating. So while the ruling clique is fighting within itself for the right to rule Punjab, the rest of the country is marginalised as only peripheral regions can be. Full article